Olivia de Havilland Interview (page: 3 / 9) Legendary Leading Lady	Print Interview

For Melanie, you were nominated for an Oscar for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role. Was that really a supporting role?

Olivia de Havilland: No, Melanie was a starring role, and that is a very interesting tale.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. When we opened in Atlanta, there were only three stars in the program. It's there to see today, if you can get hold of one, and it's "Clark Gable, Leslie Howard, Olivia de Havilland in Gone With the Wind, introducing Miss Vivien Leigh." Then of course, when she was this great, big, wonderful hit, perfectly accepted by the South, Atlanta -- that was the question. Would the South, would Margaret Mitchell, would Atlantans, Georgians, accept this English actress as Scarlett O'Hara? Well they certainly did, and then she was starred. It was Gable, Vivien Leigh, Leslie Howard, and myself. Now, when it came to the question of being nominated for the Academy Award, David could not have Melanie and Scarlett competing for Best Actress. Neither one would win.

The risk was very great. There was that wonderful film with Robert Donat and Greer Garson, Goodbye Mr. Chips, and other great performances that year by women, really tremendous performances in marvelous films. One of them would have got it, you see, because we would have competed against each other and drawn votes away from each other.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. A lot of people liked Melanie. A lot of people preferred Melanie to Scarlett. So he [Selznick] had to find a means of protecting Scarlett. The success of that film depended on it. So he decided -- he must have got Jack Warner's permission to do this -- to list me not as a star, which I was, but as a supporting actress. I never said a word when that happened, but of course it was a crushing blow. I never said a word. Now, I was only competition to Hattie McDaniel, who was a supporting actress. But you know, the most marvelous thing happened. People were very attached to Melanie, but they knew I wasn't a supporting actress. They knew that Hattie was, and they were not tricked, and they were not deceived, and they voted for Hattie. I thought that was marvelous. I didn't right away. The night of the awards, oh, there was no God! He didn't exist! I ceased to believe in Him! And then two weeks later, I woke up one morning and I thought, "What a wonderful world!" I saw an entirely different perspective, a true perspective, and I thought, "This is thrilling, that they were not deceived for a minute and they voted for Hattie, and she got it!"

It turned out to be an historic win by a black actress.

Olivia de Havilland: Yes it was, from every point of view.

After Gone With the Wind, you made history by bucking the studio system and winning a famous court case. How did it come about, that you were able to break away from Warner Brothers?

Olivia de Havilland: I finally began to do interesting work like Melanie, but always on loan out to another studio. I was nominated for Gone With the Wind, and then two years later, I was loaned to Paramount for Hold Back the Dawn and was nominated again. So I realized that at Warners I was never going to have the work that I so much wanted to have. After Melanie and Hold Back the Dawn...

Get the Flash Player to see this video. I knew that I had an audience, that people really were interested in my work, and they would go to see a film because I was in it, and I had a responsibility toward them, among other things. I couldn't bear to disappoint them by doing indifferent work at an indifferent film. And Warner... Jack would cast me in an indifferent film and an indifferent role, and I thought, "I'll have to refuse, I must do it," and I did, and of course, I was put on suspension. Now, the contracts allowed that in those days. If you said, "No, I don't want to do this part," they would then suspend the contract for the length of time it took another actress to play the role, and they would take that period of time, tack it on to the end of the contract. So in May of 1943, I found myself with six months of suspension time."

[ Key to Success ] Integrity

Warner loaned me immediately for a film at RKO that I didn't want to do, Government Girl, but I went ahead and did it. Not very good, but it was a big success, at least that was in its favor. Then he loaned me to Columbia. It was for a film that had 20 pages of script, and a starting date the following Monday. Now, there was no hope for that film, none whatsoever. No script. You didn't know how the character was going to develop. You didn't know how it should be costumed. Elizabeth Blackwell, one of the first woman doctors, was the subject. I went to Harry Cohn, the head of Columbia, and I said, "Mr. Cohn, you have got 20 pages of script and a starting date next Monday. I haven't any idea about my character, and I cannot do this film, and you will just have to tell Jack Warner." He was really rather nice to me, Harry Cohn. Maybe he was rather relieved. I don't know. Quite nice. He was supposed to be a real dragon, but I kind of liked Harry Cohn because of that particular meeting. Of course, I was put on a suspension.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. My agents, Phil Berg and Bert Allenberg, called me into their offices, South Beverly Drive, 121 -- I forgot the address, it could have been that -- in August of '43, and with them was Martin Gang, a marvelous man and lawyer. They said, "We want Martin to talk to you about your situation. He thinks there is a way out." So Martin explained that there was a California law which limited the right of an employer to enforce a contract against an employee for more than seven years, and that no actor had dared to take advantage of the law by asking for declaratory relief, which is to say an interpretation of a law as it applied to an actor's contract.

I think a baseball player had done it, but no actor had ever dared to do it. So he said, "This is what it entails. You go into the Superior Court, and there we will probably lose. There will be a single judge, and he will be influenced by Warners' lawyer and will see you as just a temperamental film actress. He will see it in emotional terms, not legal terms. Then we will appeal -- having lost the case in Superior Court -- to the appellate court, three judges, and they will judge the matters purely from the point of view of law. If we lose there, there is always the Supreme Court of the State of California to which we can appeal. So I said, "I'd like to read the law," and he provided it. I read it. It was quite brief, only about three paragraphs long. Very clearly stated, and I thought its meaning quite obvious, that the seven years meant calendar years, not seven years of work. So I said, "Let's go ahead with it, and we're not going to get discouraged along the way. We will go straight to the Supreme Court." Well...

Get the Flash Player to see this video. We went into court first, the Superior Court, Judge Charles S. Pernell presiding, in November of that year, 1943. And it is true that Warner Brothers' lawyer did put me on the witness stand, and they said, "Be very careful, because he will try to make you angry and try and make you appear like a spoiled movie actress," Oh, he was so wicked! Gimlet-eyed, and he would say, accusing me in thunderous tones, "Is it not true, Miss De Havilland, that on such-and-such a date, you failed to report to the set to play such-and-such a role in such-and-such a film?" And I, remembering Martin Gang's instructions, said, "I didn't refuse. I declined." So, all this time, I noticed that the judge, he had his hand in front of his face, and I couldn't figure out whether it was his spectacles that were twinkling or, in fact, his eyes, but we certainly had his attention, and I thought, "Maybe I have a little hope here." I think maybe I had a chance after all, and indeed, about three months later or more than that - it was March of 1944, around the 15th of March. I was up on the Island of Adak in the Aleutians, visiting patients in the military hospitals. Someone came to me, a U.S. soldier, and said, "We have a telegram for you." Well, this was really quite extraordinary up there in wartime, and it was from Martin Gang, and it said, "You've won in the Superior Court." Yes, the Superior Court of the State of California. The Warners naturally appealed immediately, and they enjoined every studio in town from employing me. Every studio in town. I think they sent out 125 injunctions, and half of the studios no longer existed, but they did a thorough job at that.

Now, we went into the Appellate Court with the three judges in September. I think it was September 10th, 1944. Martin explained to me, "You will not be put on the witness stand, but it would be a very good idea for you to appear at the back of the courtroom as the two lawyers present their cases and their arguments, because that way, the judges will know how much the outcome of the case means to you." So I appeared at the back of the court, and two of the judges understood Martin's arguments immediately. They posed very few questions because they already understood the law, and I suppose they knew where they would stand. The third judge was quite different. He questioned Martin very closely, in an aggressive, almost agitated way, and he questioned the Warners' lawyer as well. And I was awfully worried about him, and so was Martin. He told me so afterwards.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. I went off to the South Pacific to visit our soldiers there, ended up in a barrack hospital with pneumonia as a patient myself. Finally got home to the States, and I think it was in early December of '44, and I think it was about the 16th of December. Martin phoned me, and he said, "You've won a unanimous decision in the Appellate Court of the State of California." Warners appealed right away to the Supreme Court of the State of California. Now, the way it works, apparently, is that the Supreme Court takes a case for review, and if they feel there is no justification -- no need to review it because the previous decisions are sound -- they will simply not accept it for review. But there is a certain period of time, and if you pass that period -- I think it is two-and-a-half months or something like that, two months or whatever it is. Maybe it's not quite that long. If that date has passed, and they have not taken it for review, then the previous decisions hold, and that is exactly what happened. And in early February, I knew that I was now free to do the work I wanted to do.

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